How computer chips are made
Computer chips are one of the most important components while
manufacturing an electronic device or equipment. The chip is such a tiny piece
of technology that literally keeps running our devices. The chip we use today
is quite different from what it was when it was designed for the first time. Chips
are maybe so tiny with respect to size but the process of manufacturing them
is quite complex. A computer chip consists of transistors, capacitors, diodes.
Several chip equipment manufacturers are providing different types of
chips. The smaller the manufacturing process, the more transistors can fit on a
single die. Intel is currently working on a 10nm chip size, while AMD is planning
on developing 7nm. Taiwanese giant TSMC is working on 5nm chips. As the
technology upgrades, the size of these chips keeps reducing fitting more and
more transistors in a single chip. The process for producing a standard chip is
almost the same except a few changes which are mostly related to the size of chips
that are produced.
The process starts with a kind of sand known as silica sand.
This sand is the main component in the making of chips. As these chips base
material is silicon, these chips are often called as silicon chips. China is
the leading producer of silicon holding 64% share in 2019. Then the silica sand
goes through several purification and filtration to deliver electronic-grade
silicon, which has a purity of 99.99%. A purified silicon ingot, which weighs
around 100kg, is shaped from melted silica and made ready for the next step. The
circular silicon ingot is sliced into wafers as thin as possible while
maintaining the material’s ability to be used in the fabrication process. The silicon
wafers are then refined and polished in order to provide the best possible
surface for the following fabrication steps. Elkem Silicon Materials is one of
the world’s leading suppliers of silicon wafers. This polished wafer goes
through a procedure called photolithography, in which layer of photoresist is
spread thinly across the wafer. This layer is then exposed to a UV light mask,
which is shaped in the pattern of the microprocessor’s circuits. ASML is one of
the leading manufactures of Photolithography machines. Exposed photoresist is
washed off and the silicon wafer is bombarded with ions in order to
alter its conductive properties – this is called doping. Etching and
electroplating are the next steps in the process. Once electroplating is
completed, transistors are ready and now the layering of interconnects is
remaining. All the transistors are connected which is known as microprocessor.
The penultimate step is to test the chip by various methods and at last these
chips are packed. Before shipping processors are tested for efficiency,
frequency, and other metrics and once they pass all these tests, they are good
to be shipped.
This is how computer
chips are made. This process is complex and if even a single step is missed out
or not performed properly, the whole thing will fall apart resulting in
failure of a device. Today almost every equipment and device use these chips.
The consequences of a failure of even a single chip can be severe. Thus the
process of manufacturing chips is quite crucial and should be handled with
delicacy.
